SSAT Fee Waivers
EMA has helped thousands of students take the SSAT to apply and enroll in private schools with fee waivers. Please review the eligibility requirements below. If you meet the requirements, request a fee waiver directly from a school before registering for the SSAT.
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Fee Waiver Eligibility
To receive an SSAT fee waiver from an EMA member school or organization, students must meet any of the following eligibility criteria:
- Annual household income is less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold or the poverty guideline set by their country of residence or is less than 60 percent of the median household income for their country of residence.**
- The student is an orphan, a ward of the state, or homeless.
- The student is enrolled or eligible to participate in a government-subsidized food program or school-lunch program based on household income.
- The student is living in government-subsidized housing based on their household income.
Please note:
- Fee waiver eligibility is not predetermined by a family’s financial need for tuition assistance.
- **For states, provinces, or regions with a high cost of living or varying thresholds, it is acceptable to use available local data to make this determination.
- Students don't have to meet the fee waiver eligibility requirements to request an Equity Tech Kit.
- SSAT fee waivers are not available directly from EMA, the provider of the SSAT.
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What does an SSAT fee waiver include?
- An SSAT fee waiver only applies to the test fee—it does not cover late or service fees other than those noted below.
- An SSAT fee waiver provided by an EMA member school or organization can be used for any computer- or paper-based SSAT.
- SSAT fee waivers cover the base SSAT registration fee for U.S., Canadian, and all international testing.
- SSAT fee waivers also include SSAT Practice Online (available after registration).
- Students may receive and use more than one SSAT fee waiver to test multiple times.
- SSAT fee waivers expire on July 31 of each year; if your fee waiver has expired, request a new one from a school that utilizes the SSAT.
- Students required to take the Character Skills Snapshot can ask the requiring school for a separate Snapshot fee waiver.
- Students applying with the Standard Application Online (SAO) can ask schools for a separate SAO waiver.
Fee Waiver Tips
If you receive a fee waiver, register a few weeks or months before testing to prepare with the free Online SSAT Practice.
Fee waiver codes are entered on the SSAT registration payment screen, not the SSAT Codes section that appears earlier in the signup process.
If you aren't going to use a fee waiver allocated to you, please contact the school or organization that provided it so they can give it to another student.
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